Booze, Sports, Gambling — you know, the important things.

We’ve been in something of a tizzy over on the String this last week as Gnoob has been regaling us with the tale of his trip to Phoenix . . . in a Sprinter Van . . . in a blizzard . . . with no headlights. I know what you are saying — sounds like a great story, what’s the issue? Well you’re right, even though it didn’t involve Gnoob abducting a hooker, it is a riveting story. The problem is that it is a looonnnnggg story and it took Gnoob the entire week to get the story out. In other words, its a story made for the MWAG Blog. We tried to get him to move the sordid tale over here, but to no avail. He said that the text string was his “medium” or some bullshit. I really think he is just intimidated by having to prepare a proper blog post. He is Gnoob for a reason:

Given that this is the second best String Sprinter Van story (the other one’s top secret, but Karen can verify) and since, much to our initial disappointment, it doesn’t involve Gnoob abducting a hooker or doing anything more than Gnoob being Gnoob, I have decided to share it with you since Gnoob is being a bitch and won’t do it himself. So, without further ado, here’s the story of Gnoob’s recent trip to Phoenix.

Inspired by SeaDick’s blog of yesterday covering the latest music, I planted myself in front of my laptop and ridiculously giant extra screen to blog about the Sopranos’ anniversary. Figured I would acknowledge the truth of SeaDick’s allegations regarding my musical proclivities, and move on with some deep thoughts about the greatest television show of all time. Having been called out by SeaDick, I had to at least give him the goddamn common courtesy of checking out this “Spotify” thing, and the new music he is promoting. Anyway, this is awesome!

SeaDick is back bitches! I of course say that with nothing but affection. I see my brother Pipes has published a few of his “premier” blog postings to keep you entertained in my lengthy absence. As for my absence, all I can say is I’ve been a little busy and “priorities.” But never mind, I’m back and I promise to try to provide you (all 11 of you) with my scintillating insight about the important stuff we follow here on the MWTGB. To that end, as is my habit, with the turning of the calendar to 2019, I’ve spent some time thinking about the great things that came our way in 2018, especially music. I was further inspired by the receipt of this in the mail:

I know what you are saying: “What the fuck is that?” Well, its “Spargs Best of 2018” in CD form of course. The obvious follow up question is “what the fuck is a CD?” It’s an outdated format for recording and listening to music. Then again, when I received it in the mail from my good friend and fellow music lover Spargs, the first reaction I had was “how the hell am I going to listen to this?” So the side story is that Spargs likes to take a stack of these anytime he goes out to a bar and pass out a few of these as conversation openers. I’ll let you guess who gets the lion share of these things and it’s not middle-aged dudes. But I digress. As it turns out, Spargs isn’t a complete Luddite so he also makes his best of available on Spotify. Here ya go:

Spargs knows his tunes, so give it a listen. While there is usually a good deal of overlap between Spargs and me, our tastes do diverge a bit and, as stated at the outset, I am a on my annual Sisyphean task (look it up Gnoob), trying to get Pipes to listen to some music created after 1998. Now he will tell you that this isn’t a fair comment, that in fact that he does listen to new music and he will undoubtedly point to Greta Van Fleet. My obvious response will be that he gets no new music credit for listening to a Led Zeppelin cover band.

In an effort to avoid getting into that debate again however, I’m just going to throw some music from 2018 out there in the hopes that he will give it a listen and up his game. I’m going to start with something that ought to get his attention as well. A great musician who has a social conscience and isn’t afraid to let the world know it. I may not always agree with Pipes on the political issues of the day (what he won’t admit is that I agree with more of them than he is willing to acknowledge), but I can’t argue with most of the messages that Will Hoge includes in his latest album, My American Dream. I’m pretty sure that Pipes will agree with all of them. Will Hoge is hard to classify — Americana, country, country rock, singer-songwriter — labels always seem problematic to me. What I will say about him is that he’s a helluva musician. If you like Mellencamp (that’s to pique Pipes interest) or Isbell (one of my all time favs), you will like Will Hoge. Give it a listen.

More to follow of course as 2018 was a pretty good year in music, but fair warning Pipes, I’m not ranking them. Deal with it.

Alotta guys (two) have been asking me how, exactly, I won eleven grand betting on Ian Happ’s lead off home run at the start of the Cub’s 2018 season, after I mentioned that in a blog a few weeks ago about whether I got roofied in Cabo (I did). Well, here’s the full story.

Some MAGAt Trumpster at the Federalist delivered a broadside last week claiming that “You’re Not Allowed to Knock Trump for Stormy Daniels If You Watch Porn.” Yes, that was the actual headline. The full article is here. So many ways to go with this one, but let’s just hit the high points and then take a deep dive into the logic at play which, although erroneous, is kind of interesting. And, that headline will be a little confusing at first, especially for Republicans, but I promise I to tie this all up like a Christmas bow by the end. So hang in there.

Got a call from Mongo a few weeks ago, who was in Cabo for the week for a wedding. Mongo asked me to come down to Cabo to work on a proposal we needed to get done to get some new business. Mongo said he was staying in some ridiculous house in Cabo, with its own pool and a “casita.” A “casita” is a “small house or outer building.” Mongo said I would actually be doing him a favor if I stayed in the casita so he wouldn’t feel like he was wasting money having that little house out there sitting empty. Wanting to help Mongo out, and considering that the stay would be as free as the salad at Olive Garden, I grabbed a flight to Cabo to go work on the proposal.

Jake and I still debate whose idea it was to get Bronson. The idea to get another dog was probably mine. But I swear to your god and mine that it was Jake’s idea to get a Rottweiler. I had never even met a Rottweiler. I had only seen them in the movies. A scary brute, silently guarding the estate or junk yard, available, if necessary, to kill or maul any intruder.Continue reading →

The kids and I left for Florida the day after Trish’s funeral. The trip served a couple of purposes. Mainly we needed to get Alexa back to school for the end of her freshman year at the University of Miami. We also needed more time to spend together as a family, just the five of us, and figure out how this new life might work without Trish. So on the Thursday after Trish died, the day after her funeral, we loaded up the family truckster and headed out on the 24 hour drive for South Florida.Continue reading →

Strange that I didn’t know the answer to that, but I didn’t, so I asked. Uncle Bud, his real name is Albert, but everyone called him Bud, was my dad’s oldest brother. As the oldest brother, Uncle Bud was the patriarch of the family, at least since my grandpa had died in 1983.Continue reading →